Hi everyone! I’m back, so that must mean it’s been two months done here already?? Wow. I feel like so much has happened recently, but time is just flying right by! Last I checked it was the height of summer at the beginning of July, but now it’s mid-August and we’ve started school already (although I’m not complaining about the cooler weather!) I’m pretty much independently leading sessions with almost every client that I’m seeing now – which is wild just as an individual fact – but what has surprised me the most when I’ve been planning for and leading these sessions is just how important improvisation is in it all. No matter what I’ve planned, things could go completely differently depending on how each client shows up that specific day and what they need right then from music. Sometimes I’ve had to scrap everything I had planned for the day and do something totally new, which was way scary to do at first, and something I’m still getting used to doing.
Just like musical improv, though, this sort of improv and flexibility takes a lot of practice too. And the more I do it, the easier and less scary it gets! I think that’s one of the biggest lesson I’ve been learning/will learn while I’m here – sometimes you can’t plan everything and just have to go with the flow. In those moments, it always helps me to go back to the basics of what we do: what is that client working on in therapy, and how can music be used to help them towards that goal? During my past couple of months at RGM, a large part of what I’ve been doing is building up a set of ideas and activities to use in various ways in sessions. I think a large part of what I’ll be doing in the next part of my time here will be learning how/when to use those ideas, and trusting myself that I know how to implement those things.
I know that my past couple of posts have been ‘here’s what lesson Sarah’s learned during her internship this past month’ which, while specific maybe to other mt students/interns, is exactly who I hope reads or gets something out of these posts. There’s a lot of new stuff thrown at you very quickly during internship, so I’m hoping that my (and past RGM intern) posts are able to help anyone else doing this same thing. It’s a lot of hands-on learning and experiences here, so you’ll probably have to learn some of these lessons while you’re doing them, but I hope these posts are a reminder that you aren’t alone while you’re here. We’ve all been there, so don’t be afraid to ask supervisors/other therapists for help; that’s what they’re there for!
Until next time,
Sarah
